Teaching? I’m on the phone!

Use your phone to record who did the homework. Don’t collect all that paper if you only have time to verify who completed the assignment. You can easily use the scan to spreadsheet solution- Got the Homework Blues?

Present directly from your phone. My classroom computer is really old and really slow. Now that I have Office 365 on up to 5 devices, I can project a PowerPoint presentation directly from my phone. My set up time is now under a minute!

Get rid of the paper immediately by snapping a digital copy. I know I will lose that late assignment or make-up test. It is safer to get a digital copy and send it to email or to a cloud file! Try to go paperless as I’ve shared in the past here- The Paperless Teachers Desk (It can be done!) Here’s how –

Your whiteboard is beautiful – now save it for next year! I use Office Lens to send my board work directly to a word document, PDF or PowerPoint slide. (see the Paperless Teachers Desk link above)

Get a quick assessment before your students leave class. Set up a feedback loop with TodaysMeet, Poll Everywhere or Socrative to reflect on your teaching.

Transform your phone into a document camera to project student work onto a big screen or Smart Board. You can do this with the Squirrels mirroring software for under $20. Anything on my phone can be projected wirelessly from anywhere in my classroom. Check it out it our here at airsquirrels.com: Mirror Application

With the annual Office 365 plan you are allowed to download the applications on 5 devices. From the app store, I have the mobile versions of PowerPoint and Word downloaded on my phone. Here is my workflow: 1) Download the PowerPoint onto the phone from the OneDrive storage 2) Open the presentation in the PowerPoint app 3) Turn on your SmartBoard or Projector and take the cord that was connecting to a computer and connect it to your phone. This will require a dongle that works with your phone. I bought mine from the Apple store. (Take your phone into the store if you are confused about which one to buy.)

Some hints: If you have a presentation with a ton of animations, it will take longer to load on your phone. If you are projecting from a word document, you can email it to yourself and just open it.

You will want to turn off the notifications on your phone so your presentation isn’t interrupted with your random personal text messages! Also, you will want to make sure to change the settings so your phone doesn’t go to too sleep too quickly. To get the widest picture on the SmartBoard, rotate your phone to landscape.